Sampling - getting tired of it!

Finally! Those darned striped socks I started in the spring are done.  They seemed to take forever, mainly because I set them aside and kept ignoring them.  However I found a bag with 4 skeins of sock yarn, hiding in my bedroom and decided that they should get off the needles to make way for a new pair.  I have to find a better way to photograph the socks as I hate the way setting them like this makes one sock look larger than the other!


Samples, samples , samples.  I've been spinning lots of small bits of yarn, practicing drafting techniques.  My whole house is now covered with sample yarns of different grists, tpi and wpi.  They are piled on the loom bench, on any flat surface, hanging from the loom and drying rack.  They are everywhere!  None yet for my homework and I've no idea what I'll use these small bits and pieces for.  At least they are getting closer to what I'm aiming for, even if I'm not there yet.

The wool samples are at least nice yarns.  Then there are the silks.   Spinning silk hankies can sometimes be like spinning dental floss.  I had a few older hankies in my stash which were painful to spin.  Thankfully a friend gave me some hankies from her stash which are much nicer.  They draft fairly easily and make up a half decent yarn.   Then there are the start of silk tussah skeins, trying to get them thin enough for a specific purpose.  This ugly chartreuse shade isn't quite there yet.

I'm not sure about the purple either.  While it looks okay, I think it might have used a bit more twist.   I've started swatching to see if it can tell me more about the yarn.  I don't really like swatching for no particular reason and I'm trying to tell myself that this is a good reason.  So far, I'm not accepting that it's not a waste of time.  This knitting yarn is okay.  The swatch however looks to have a little too much Mr. Darcy and Pride and Prejudice mini series (with Colin Firth) knitted into it.

After plying, there is always one bobbin with a little extra yardage on it.  No matter how carefully I way or measure, I'm out a few yards.    So I've been using that extra yardage on the bobbin to practice chain plying.  This is just for my own practice, not a homework requirement, trying to get my chain playing not over twisted.  The bottom couple of butterflies make me think I've got it figured out.  At least that is one small accomplishment to have conquered.  To bad it's not one of the homework requirements for level 3!